


All's Fair in Cake and War

by zinjadu



Series: Between Eternity and Time [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dessert & Sweets, Embarrassment, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7032085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rex said he'd pay good money to see Ahsoka mess with Fives, he didn't think she'd take it seriously.  Because the universe needs more clone trooper and commanding Jedi slice of life.  Fluffy, silly thing, goes off a scene from Chapter 3 of "Enough for Us," also by me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All's Fair in Cake and War

“So how much would you pay?” Ahsoka asked him that morning over breakfast. She had finally been able to go out on R&R with the company on Ossus, and Rex had joked that he would pay good money to see Ahsoka grill Fives about always going after Twi’leks.

  
“That was a joke,” he said, eyebrow raised slightly. “Besides, I don’t have any money.”

 

“I know that,” she said. “But there has to be something that you’d give up for it.” _Ah_ , he thought, understanding. _She’s angling for something._

 

“What is that you want?” he asked, wary. Ahoska didn’t often try to finagle something out of him, General Skywalker was her usual target, but he had learned to be cautious when she started bargaining. Her people weren’t merchants or traders, they were hunters, which was worse in some ways. When Ashoka saw the slightest hesitation or weakness, she pounced.

 

“Tonight’s dessert is caramel fudge cake with ice cream,” she told him. _Ah yes, nothing like a growing Jedi for being able to put away food._ He and his brothers could put away a startling amount of food: increased metabolism and all that, though thankfully it slowed once they hit ten chronological years old. But his commander could consume so much food it staggered him sometimes. He’d seen her eat after a battle, wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or worried. The general had told him it was to be expected, but still. She’d eaten Coric under the table, an accomplishment Rex wasn’t sure should have been possible.

 

“Let me get this straight,” he drawled, trying to make her implied proposal sound too ridiculous for her to agree to. “You want me to give you _my_ portion of dessert in exchange for you messing with Fives? Ahsoka, that’s just absurd.”

 

“Absurd? Absurd?! Rex, I love that cake, that’s like… the best dessert we get, and we never get it. They trot it out maybe once a month, and I’ve missed it the past three times because I’ve been off-ship. _And_ they don’t make extra dessert portions,” she said, as though that were the worst crime of all. “And besides, you know you want me to mess with Fives. He drives you crazy, I can see it, but _you_ can’t mess with him because you’re his captain. I can though, because I’m not just his commander, I’m also a young Padawan,” she said smugly. “They _expect_ me to not know anything about sex.”

 

Rex considered it a heroic feat that he didn’t sputter out his _caf_ when she said ‘sex,’ which more or less proved her point. Certainly she’d gotten that particular education somewhere along the line, if only for her own safety. Clones had something in way of that as well: ‘here’s how it works, don’t do it, you’re soldiers.’ Granted, that went out the spaceport for most troopers first time they encountered a willing woman.

 

 _Damn it_ , he thought. _She’s right. It would be really, really fun to see Fives get a little payback for all his stunts_.

 

He scowled at her, but it was pointless. She knew she had won.

 

“Fine, you can have my dessert, but this had better be good,” he said.

 

“Oh,” she said smiling, with a glint in her eye that made him slightly, ever so slightly, nervous. “It will be.”

 

* * *

 

“But Fives,” she said at dinner that night, her blue eyes wide and apparently innocent. “Presumably there’s nothing _that_ particular about Twi’leks that make them different from other humanoid females. Is it the lekku? Because Togruta have lekku, and you don’t seem interested in my people.”

 

Fives, for his part, was wild around the eyes, trying to defend his sexual preferences to a fifteen-year-old Jedi Padawan in front of his brothers. Ahsoka frowned in thought, and then raised a white eyebrow at him.

 

“Unless, of course, it _is_ the lekku, and you _are_ interested in Togruta, too?” she asked, and that was the last straw. Fives sputtered and stammered and looked to his brothers for help, any help. All he saw were identical faces apparently hanging on his answer.

 

“No! I’m not! I mean, look, you’re a handsome people, sure, and… and….” Fives trailed off, defeated. Rex watched as his commander kept up the act, and Fives got more and more flustered.

 

“Rex,” the general said, sitting next to him as Ahsoka was now on to the subject of skin color and texture. “What the kriff is this about?” he asked mildly.

 

“Ah, yes. The commander wanted an extra portion of dessert, and she figured, correctly, that seeing Fives contort himself into knots answering her questions would be something I’d give up that cake and ice cream for,” he said blandly. He had anticipated the general getting involved, which at least meant Ahsoka wouldn’t go too far with Fives.

 

What surprised him was that the general laughed. “Well, Fives deserves a little embarrassment now and again, I suppose. I’ll stop it soon, I think, but Rex?”

 

“Sir?”

 

“I’ll cover the costs of this one. I know you troopers have a hell of a sweet tooth.”

 

Rex blinked, and felt oddly… grateful. They didn’t have much, as clones, so small gestures meant a lot to them. Rex only gave Skywalker a simple nod in return. “Thank you, sir.”

 

“Not a problem, Rex. And I think I’ll speak to the staff about Ahsoka’s calorie requirements,” he said, leaving his own dessert behind on Ahsoka’s tray. Skywalker gave his Padawan a little frown, and she wrapped it up quickly.

 

“Thanks for the insight, Fives, very informative,” she said as she walked back to her spot, giving the troopers a cheeky grin. The whole table she had been at then erupted into laughter, the nearest troopers getting in a few jabs before everything settled down.

 

Ahsoka looked down at her tray and noticed the two portions of cake and ice cream and smiled. Then she looked at Rex’s tray. He still had his dessert.

 

“What? I thought there were no extra dessert portions? How?” she asked.

 

“The General covered my payment,” Rex said. And he watched something in Ahsoka shift. He didn’t mind that she’d asked for his dessert, not really. He _had_ enjoyed watching Fives twist like that, so fair was fair, but she seemed to realize that something about the whole arrangement while funny and not malicious had been… unkind.

 

She looked up at him and gave him a rueful grin. “I should probably know better, huh?”

 

“We both should know better, but hey, living is learning, or something like that,” he said. He couldn’t deny that he wasn’t complicit in this little scheme. Her expression then took on a determined cast, and she stood.

 

“Alright, then,” she said, grabbed the extra portion of dessert and trotted back to Fives at the other table.

 

“Hey Fives, sorry about messing with you so bad,” she said. “Extra dessert buys forgiveness?” She held out bowl. Fives gave her a level look, but then grinned, taking the bowl from her.

 

“All is forgiven, Commander,” he said. “I won’t say good joke, but I suppose I earned it.”

 

“Maybe a little,” she said, and there were laughs all around. When she sat down again, she frowned at her own dessert.

 

“Do I eat it? I mean, I didn’t give up anything I should have had just then. That was Skyguy’s dessert. Do you want it?” she asked, looking up at him. And there it was, the Jedi tendency to over sacrifice. Rex shook his head.

 

“You have it. You did, after all, give a masterful performance as a naïve young Jedi Padawan. That deserves some recognition,” he said. She laughed.

 

“Alright, I get it, stop trying to be perfect, enjoy cake while I can, something like that?” she asked, happily taking a bite of cake with a bit of ice cream, savoring it for all she was worth.

 

“Something like that,” he said, digging into his own portion of dessert. _And, to be fair,_ he thought, _this is the best dessert we get_.


End file.
